


Darkest Days

by kronette



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s02e22 All Hell Breaks Loose, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-19
Updated: 2007-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kronette/pseuds/kronette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For seventeen years, he hunted to keep the darkness at bay. Tried to make life better for other families. Now he knew how truly pointless it all was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkest Days

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://spn-25.livejournal.com/profile)[**spn_25**](http://spn-25.livejournal.com/) [](http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=)[](http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=)****Theme Set:#2 Prompt #18 Master
> 
> This takes place almost a year after the finale

Everything he touched, he destroyed. 

For seventeen years, he hunted to keep the darkness at bay. Tried to make life better for other families. 

Now he knew how truly pointless it all was. 

Standing before the same gate his father used to escape from hell, demons and tortured souls streamed past his immobile form. He stared into the flickering light below, hearing his name called by hundreds; _thousands_ of voices; the angry souls he’d sent to hell…and demons. The demons he’d exorcised, broken deals with, injured enough to buy him another day, another week, another month. More time with his family. 

What remained of his family. 

Mom had died in the fire, but her spirit remained with the house, trapped by the violence and the demonic presence. Her spirit might have continued in that house forever, if he and his brother hadn’t interfered. For Mary loved her sons that she gave everything she had, everything that remained, to keep them safe.

Dad traded a gun, a bullet and his soul for Dean’s life. Spent nearly a year in the depths before him, untold horrors visited upon him. He didn’t know exactly what happened to John, though enough demons taunted him about the torture, the pain; the incapacity of the human mind to comprehend just how hellish it was. For Dad loved Dean that he bargained with the creature that killed his wife, the evil he hunted for twenty years and willingly went to hell, to keep his eldest son safe. 

But the eldest wasn’t to remain unscathed by this sacrifice. Dean bore the weight of his father’s death upon his heart, losing his father, teacher and hero all at once. More remained of John’s legacy: Dean was passed the burden of truth about what Sam was to become, adding more weight to his bowed shoulders. 

To show no fear, to show no sorrow, to show no anger bore the eldest to his knees. He lashed out, reached out, desperate to find a kindred soul, one who could fill the void of teacher. He would have no other father. He had no desire to learn of heroic deeds. He needed comfort; craved it; wanted to rest for a hundred years and wanted to retreat into the past, before evil touched his family. 

The teacher failed him. False heroes disappointed him. The edges of his black and white world bled until nothing remained but gray. 

His brother fell from grace. 

Sacrifice. Gods of old demanded it of their worshippers, more feared than loved. Parents sacrificed so their children would have better lives than they did. So their children would have a better world in which to grow up. Saints sacrificed to end suffering, hunger and disease. 

Winchesters were not saints. They weren’t gods. John and Mary, as parents to Dean and Sam, sacrificed all they were to give their sons a chance at a better world. 

Dean sacrificed his soul to resurrect his brother. Unwilling and unable to face a world without his charge, his sole directive, his only reason for continuing to breathe; he traded an intangible for flesh and bone. To touch a warm, living body instead of the cold, dead slab that remained behind. Blood flowed through Sam’s veins once again. One year a distant future, one year that disappeared in the blink of an eye. One year of watching his brother’s descent into the abyss, until what he knew of Sam Winchester was destroyed within the familiar shell. 

One voice carried above all others, still familiar despite the changes inside. Dean turned to look at the figure behind him, limbs taut with strain as they tried to break the binding spell. 

What-used-to-be-Sam stared back, eyes black as the night around them. Pleading cries joined the tormented expression: “You sold your soul for me, Dean! You carried me, your baby brother, out of the fire to safety. You protected me for all those years. You gave me a _childhood._ You kept me innocent about the things that go bump in the night for as long as you could.” The sorrowful mask twisted into an ugly sneer. “Too bad little Sammy was never the innocent he claimed to be.”

The blessed numbness that had overtaken him weeks ago held firm, and Dean turned his back on what used to be his brother. He stood tall as he yanked the cord around his neck, removing the necklace his mother had placed over his head twenty-eight years ago. Immediately, he felt the power rushing through him, filling him, giving him everything and nothing he wanted. 

The wind picked up, whipping his tattered clothes against his equally tattered body. He wrapped the cord around his fist and stepped closer to the open gate. Unholy howls of rage chorused behind him as he reared back and let fly a punch to the center of the lock. 

The amulet jammed the lock; the lock broke his hand. He felt no pain. He felt nothing. The wind ceased; the sounds choked off. A tear slipped down his cheek as he took his final steps on the earth, descending to take his rightful place as the leader of the army. As it should have been two years ago. As it should have been twenty-eight and a half years ago. 

It was an old wives’ tale that a mother’s love offered protection from the most basic of evil.

Demons lie. 

Except when the truth is more devastating.

The End


End file.
